and drink, but discourages moving around, because they want the birds to grow bigger
faster. Birds at 5 weeks can hardly stand because their legs are so weak and with no
natural light or exercise their joints are too soft to carry the weight" (Forsberg, 2003
cited in Davis, K. Humane Treatment of Domestic Livestock, 2003).
starve to death. We witnessed this first hand at Fraser Valley Duck and Goose, a duck facility in British
Columbia, on November 14, 2008 and again at the same facility some days later. Numerous ducks lay
on their backs, some struggling to right themselves, some just lying still, some already deceased their
rotting carcasses left amid the living birds.
140,000 water birds were killed at the facility by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) [slowly
and cruelly as carbon dioxide was used, yet is known to be traumatic for birds such as waterfowl who
have a diving reflex which allows them to withstand periods of reduced oxygen (hypoxia)], yet
decomposing carcasses were left in the barns. Dying birds were left to suffer, and were not euthanized
or culled from the flock. It was clear the suffering, downed birds were left for days as the mouth of one
duck was full of feces and he was severely dehydrated. Given such a high-risk state, we question what
level of follow up inspections have been conducted by the CFIA for this facility that caused the last
outbreak of Avian Influenza.